From Below
by AnimaSola
Summary: A group of defenseless students must try to escape from their school, miles away from civilization and overridden by zombies and T-Virus mutations. How will they ever escape the horrors of their school and the endless woods surrounding it?
1. Prologue

~A/N: Hey everyone! This is my first Resident Evil fic, and I really hope that you like it. The names of the people and the school are all fictional, and any similarities are just really coincidental. If you like it, and I hope you do, please review. It could even be like a one-liner like 'good' or 'bad', but anything that you say will make me happy. Your reviews keep me going, and so that I can post all the rest that I have done already. Oh yeah, I don't own Resident Evil or anything, and no copy right infringement is intended.  
  


* * *

  
"I'm sorry, but you're going to have to provide the proper identification before I can allow you to come into this part of the facility," the balding man stated pointedly before returning his previous task; playing a racing game on his computer console.  
  
The diminutive brunette that he'd been talking to balled her fists in apparent frustration, but made no other outward sign of anger, resolving herself into smiling sweetly at the man that seemed to insist on ignoring her.  
  
"Well, sir, I'm here to see my uncle..." she paused for a second as she scoured her memory banks for the name of any scientist or researcher she had gone over during her briefing some hours earlier, "...Jordan Slade. As you may know, he's a head researcher here, and obviously higher up than you. I doubt he'd be pleased to hear how you're treating his favorite niece," she finished with a smile only to match that of the fat man in front of her, who seemed as pleased as her.  
  
"Well, I'm glad to hear you know of Ms. Slade. I'm sure she'll be happy to hear her niece was in after you vacate the premises. I'm going to have to call security."  
  
With a slight twitch of her already balled fists, the girl inwardly cursed herself for not studying the files she was given more closely. "Okay then, but there's no need to call security, I can let myself out thank you very much."  
  
The receptionist scoffed at the girl before turning his attention back on his game, failing to notice that she not only remained where she was, but appeared to be looking around the room carefully. As a particularly hard turn came up on the game, his attention fixed onto the task at hand, the man also failed to notice the girl unsling her backpack and procure from it a black nylon rope.  
  
Feigning that she was exiting the building, she turned around, rope behind back, and started down the hall before stopping just under a stationary camera. She counted under her breath to ten, and then jumped up, yanking the cord from the back of the camera with ease. Satisfied that the camera was now inoperable, she crept down the hall with her back to the wall, continuing her counting routine. After she reached ten, she sidestepped right three times, and hastily walked six more paces forward, and stood where she was, eyes fixed on the next camera, as it swiveled past her harmlessly, with her in it's blind spot. After it passed over her, she stepped under it and dispatched it in quite the same way she had the first. After the camera discontinued moving, she walked leisurely back up to the reception desk, where the man she nicknamed 'Grumpy', swiveled towards her.  
  
"What are you doing back here? Like I said earlier, you're not going to get by this way! You delivered the parcel for your "uncle" now leave; we can handle it from here!" Grumpy shouted angrily, rising from his seat as she approached.  
  
After reaching the desk, she gave one more quick glance around before turning back to the man, and punching him squarely in the temple. He dropped without further complaint, and she went quickly to work tying him firmly up and stashing him behind his own desk.  
  
After standing up and ceremoniously brushing her hands together, she headed towards the entrance to laboratory B. She stopped abruptly though, and as if an afterthought, headed back towards the counter where she retrieved her parcel from the pile Grumpy had placed it in. She turned around and continued back to the door, studying the package in her hands carefully. After much consideration of it, she reached up her sleeve and procured a small silver and black knife, and after gracefully flicking it open, tore into the packaging tape, revealing inside the box a Desert Eagle.  
  
Satisfied with the box's contents, the girl threw the box casually over her shoulder, silently hoping that it would hit Grumpy, and walked through the door, completely ignoring the biohazard sign emblazoned on it.  
  
She ended up in an antiseptically white hall, the left and right sides occupied by equally white doors with an elevator straight ahead and thankfully devoid of any human life. Before stepping any farther into the room, she leveled herself with the door, and shimmied right carefully, until she was right under yet another camera. After the camera stopped moving, she kneeled down and took off her backpack, tipping it upside-down, and allowing the contents to spill to the floor. She sifted through the pile, separating what was there; a headset, 2 full clips for the Desert Eagle that was now also on the floor, a small flashlight, a pair of black gloves, a tube of lipstick, a small digital camera, a lock pick set, a nondescript aerosol can, a cell phone, and a length of black rope with small silver clips attached to it. She grabbed each item in turn, and tucked them into separate places on her body, each carefully camouflaged on her entirely black outfit. Lastly, she delicately placed the gloves onto her hands and grabbed her gun, and considered whether she should load it or not, finally deciding that doing so would be a good precaution.  
  
Satisfied, she picked up the now empty backpack, and made her way to the far end of the hall calmly, knowing full well that she wouldn't be caught in this stage because the doors to the left and to the right of her were fake, her only problem being the elevator, which would alert her of any danger far before it ever came.  
  
She tapped the "down" arrow lightly when she reached the elevator, and sharply turned to her left; fixing her attention on the grate of a ventilation shaft set a few feet above her head. She procured her knife once again, and after opening it again, jumped up and wedged the blade in the shaft's grate. She both used the effects of gravity on the way down, and a tug, to pull the grate down with an almighty crash. She cringed despite herself, and looked around as a precaution. Satisfied that she wasn't heard, she balanced the grate between her knees and jumped up, grabbing a hold of the lip of the shaft. She hefted herself up easily despite the grate now dangling between her feet, and crawled into the shaft followed by the cover, and after crawling a few feet, turned around and replaced it.  
  
After turning on the flashlight she carried, she continued her way down the shaft, and upon reaching the first fork, turned right, continuing her way down the dusty tunnel. At the next fork, she turned right again, and began to feel the faint vibration of the elevator up ahead. Ahead of her, a small patch of light illuminated the exit of the ventilation shaft, and she raced towards it, happy to leave the gloomy tunnels behind. As she neared the gap up ahead, a shrill 'beep', followed by a muffled voice sent her flying into the top of the shaft in surprise. Remembering that she was supposed to check into her partner nearly an hour ago, she reached into her pocket, and found the headset. Jamming it onto her head, she pulled the microphone to her mouth, and began speaking.  
  
"Sorry, I didn't hear what you just said, please repeat...over."  
  
"What do you think your doing, not checking in like that, huh...over?" a  
voice yelled over static in her ear.  
  
"Yeah, I got a little caught up in the layers of security around here.  
Where are you now...over?"  
  
"I'm waiting my merry little butt up here in the school. I was in the  
van, but then the headmistress came out and asked me why I took so  
long. Apparently there was a small rodent outbreak in the basement,  
and me, being the exterminator, needed to attend to it immediately.  
Why would you ever steal a "Rodent Remover" van Raquel...over?"  
  
"Whoa, it's so not my fault! How was I supposed to know that the  
school was in need of an exterminator, its pure coincidence. What am I  
supposed to do now for extraction...over?"  
  
"I'll try to get back, but if I leave now, it might look a bit  
suspicious. Just hurry, alright, I'll be where I need to...over."  
  
During the hurried conversation, the girl had climbed on top of the elevator almost automatically when it arrived, and was now waiting patiently on top of it for it to reach the bottom-most level of the facility. As she descended, cool air whipped at her long dark hair, and shafts of light illuminated her pale face as she slipped past the numerous floors of the facility. Growing stiff and extremely bored, she was happy when the elevator finally came to an abrupt stop at the bottom, jarring her from her cat-like stance.  
  
Happy to finally leave the dank, she hurried towards the faint outline of her exit; another ventilation shaft. Climbing through nimbly, she attached the flashlight in her hand to the headset still on her head, and continued down the shaft as quietly as she could, pausing only briefly to remember which turn she was supposed to take.  
  
After several silent minutes, she finally reached her destination, and after a calming deep breath, she headed towards it. Peering down through the grate, she took in the small lab below her; along the front and back walls stood large counters, various microscopes, fancy computers, Petri dishes, vials, and syringes atop them, the right side of the room occupied by a large locked freezer, while the left was home to a large steel door. Down the middle of the room was a large silver sink, it's drain disappearing into the ground. This room was also curiously empty, and after the girl's stomach did a flip, she faintly considered turning back.  
  
/Why did I encounter so little resistance? The elevator alone should have been guarded? Was the briefing I received bogus? No, my benefactor wouldn't send me in here with false information; he's the one that wants this sample not me. All I need to worry about is getting the sample, and getting a million dollars for me and my sister for my trouble./  
  
Returning back to the task at hand, she repeated the words 1 million dollars in her head, almost like a mantra, as she fished out the tube of lipstick from one of her many pockets. Studying it closely for a minute before finally opening it, she drew a line in the grate in front of her, careful not to touch the sides where pressure sensitive alarms stood. After stepping back to admire her handy work, a small square of grate fell towards her and landed quietly on her palm.  
  
Attaching the rope she procured earlier to the inside of the grate, she threw it down into the room, and jumped in seconds later after it.  
  
/This is way too easy./  
  
She landed on the ground with a light thud, and immediately scoured the room for any security devices, and upon finding none, made her way to the freezer dominating the right side of the room.  
  
After grabbing a small cell phone out of her pocket, she pulled a concealed cord out of it, and attached it firmly into the keypad. After tapping a few buttons on the phone, she let it get to work, and set it down, letting her curiosity get the better of her.  
  
She walked up to one of the many computers, and lightly tapped her fingers on the keys, allowing a password protected screen to come up. Abandoning the hope that she'd somehow know the password, she stepped away from the computer, and resigned herself to looking around the cluttered lab.  
  
Briefly checking to see how far her encryption was going, she continued over to one of the many microscopes and peered in, and after finding nothing, strode back over to the freezer, and paced nervously.  
  
/This is taking too long, what if some one came it? I wouldn't be surprised; someone should have been here a long time ago./  
  
The shrill 'beep' of her encryption software finishing, and the 'thump' of the freezer unlocking broke her from her chain of thought, and only after the door hissed pressurized air, and swung open towards her did she hear the dull beeping of a siren from somewhere deep within the building.  
  
Suddenly panicked, she reached into her pocket, to retrieve the aerosol can, and promptly dropped it after hearing muffled shouting filter through the door. Scooping it up off the ground with shaking hands, she popped the bottom off to reveal a small protective case big enough to fit a small vial. She then quickly took to searching the many drawers of the freezer for the small blue vial she was searching for.  
  
Just as her hands brushed the vial, the door behind her burst open. She grasped it with her fingertips, and ducked. Bullets flying through the space she had just occupied, breaking bottles, and spilling chemicals down onto her head.  
  
"Hold your fire you idiots! We can't break the vials!" an indistinct voice shouted.  
  
The girl's body started to burn, and after a moment she realized that she was doused in some form of unknown liquid. Shrieking, she stood up, and dropped the vial in her hand, all pretenses of escaping with the virus lost as she felt her skin begin to boil and peel away.  
  
"What's happening to me!" she managed to choke out before she began to scream again, the pain too intense to try and listen for the answer.  
  
The people in front of her stared in disbelief, as the girl in front of them stumbled around in agony. No one thought to help her, and no one noticed as she trampled on the bottle, breaking it, and allowing its contents to spill onto the floor.  
  
Finally, some person from the group, presumably with a conscious stepped forward to help, completely forgetting about his original mission.  
  
The girl in front of him started to shake, as clumps of hair began to fall off of her head, landing to the ground with sickly squelches. She raised her hands to her face in an attempt to wipe off the chemicals, but it was of no use; her hands were barely more than bone and tendon, the unknown virus or bacteria eating through everything it touched. Her eyes, the only things completely intact, the rest of her face burned away revealing her jaw, and cheekbone, rolled to the back of her head, and she crumpled to the ground.  
  
The men standing around did nothing but stare it disbelief until suddenly, an alarm went off with in the lab.  
  
"Oh no, the virus has been released. Do you have any idea what you idiots just did? You just killed us all!" the same man shouted, turning futilely towards the door behind him, just as it began to close.  
  
The others turned as one, and ran towards the door, pounding their fists into the door and pulling on the knob in an attempt to open it. Just outside the door they could hear muffled screams and shouts as their co- workers attempted to flee from the premises to no avail. Just as someone voiced their opinion of the situation, a thin white mist began to seep into the room from small vents in the ground.  
  
"What is that stuff?" someone asked frantically as the gas began to rise into the room.  
  
The answer unknown, the men continued to frantically pound on the door, hoping that someone would come to the rescue. From behind them came a muffled moan, and as they turned they found the presumably dead girl, now at her feet, and turning her milky white gaze upon them.  
  
"Whoa, shouldn't she be dead? What the hell is this?" someone yelled in disbelief, just as the smoke around them began to invade their lungs, choking them.  
  
The girl, apparently unfazed by both the smoke, and the incapacitating wounds on her body continued forward towards the already falling men slowly, taking no notice of the sink barring her way to them.  
  
Now on the ground choking, the men feebly attempted to pound on the door once more, while others began screaming as the girl descended upon them.  
  
Some of the men were lucky enough to die because of the smoke while others fell victim to the virus carrier, their last few moments of life spent screaming as she ripped out their throats, and dug her fingers into their flesh, their blood spraying into their agonized faces, as their life faded slowly away from them.  
  
Somewhere high above the underground lab facility stood the unsuspecting school, Mountainveiw Academy. Even there, the student body was affected by a noxious gas seeping slowly into the school. No one noticed as the high- tech doors locked themselves shut without any probable reason, until it was too late to do anything about it.  
  


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~A/N: This fic is planned to be pretty long, but it all depends on the reader's if it's going to go any further than this. I know it may be a little long-winded but I like details, and don't worry, it will get more interesting, more gore and the like. All I ask is that you review, I would appreciate it so much if you did, even if it's something small. So yeah, just review, and if it's enjoyed, we'll see where this leads. Thanks! 


	2. The Deep Breath Before the Plunge

~A/N: Once again I doth not own Resident Evil, nor do I mean to infringe upon it or it's creators. I just wanted to say thank you to those who reviewed. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be writing anymore. Oh, to Matro I love your fics their great, you have really good ideas. Same with you Tsunami, your fic was so very funny. Alma, I purposely dulled down the big words on this one, I guess you were right. That's what I get for being in honors, bleh. Zyte, thank you so much too, but sorry it took so long, I had a brain fart like to the max. I'll try harder next time, anyhoo....on with the story.  
~***~  
  
"Excuse me, Ms. Green, excuse me! Would you like to rejoin the class now?" a voice said sternly.  
  
The girl in the back row, who the teacher had been talking to remained still, head on desk, and apparently unaware of the now angry teacher advancing towards her. The students around the sleeping girl whispered at her urgently, while the rest of the class attempted to stifle laughter, finding the situation funny.  
  
A dark-haired boy sitting to the right of the girl prodded her in the ribs under the desk.  
  
"Mrs. Dunmire's coming, Cadence, wake up!" he whispered urgently at her from the corner of his mouth.  
  
Cadence stirred slightly, and jerked her head up suddenly as the teacher's fist slammed down upon her desk.  
  
"Ms. Green, can you kindly explain to me why you cannot stay awake during a single one of my classes?" Mrs. Dunmire whispered dangerously, hoping to keep the conversation private but knowing full well that it was carrying around the room.  
  
"Well, I-..." she mumbled, trying to find an excuse.  
  
"Silence! I don't want to hear another one of your excuses. I would send you to the Headmaster's office, but I know that it wouldn't do any more good now than it did the first time. I want you to go straight to your dormitory, and stay there!"  
  
Cadence mumbled an apology under her breath, and began packing her things into her backpack. She heard her friend next to her, Andy, snicker under his breath as the teacher stalked back to the front of the room.  
  
"Shut up! Why didn't you tell me she was coming? She's gonna report me, and I'll get another letter sent back home. My parents are getting fed up," she whispered through clenched teeth.  
  
"Sorry, I just found it funny. Just keep your eyes open, it's not that hard. Don't worry though, I'll visit you during lunch. I'll get the gang to come too, kay" he whispered back.  
  
"Are you quite done yet, Ms. Green?" the teacher growled from the front of the classroom.  
  
She nodded her head, and stood up, swinging her bag onto her back. As she pushed in her chair, she yanked her long, dark braid from underneath her backpack, and flipped it onto her shoulder. She mumbled one last apology to her professor and proceeded to the door, only stopping to look back at her friend. He pointed to the laptop situated in front of him, and gestured vaguely in the air. She nodded, knowing that he wanted her to instant message him when she got back to her dorm, and proceeded out the door.  
  
She walked down the empty hall with a frown on her face, deep in thought, when she suddenly ran head long into a solid object.  
  
It emitted a loud 'oomph' just as she did when she hit the hard ground, and she knew automatically who she had run into.  
  
"Hello, Jacob," she stated without looking up, instead focusing on whether the laptop in her backpack was damaged in the fall. When he didn't speak, she immediately smoothed out her relatively short skirt, knowing that the hall monitor would find any excuse to dock her points. Looking up, she noticed that he was indeed surveying her outfit.  
  
"Cadence, you know that you've been given a lot of slack around here, because of your position, but I don't understand why you purposely try to break the rules," he said while offering her a hand up.  
  
She took the proffered hand and looked down at herself briefly, taking in the un-regulation 'hooker' boots as many called them, the knee- length black skirt that now sat at the middle of her thighs, and the white polo shirt that was unceremoniously unbuttoned. She put on a smile, and looked at the diminutive hall monitor; she noted that she had to look down at him.  
  
"Jacob, don't worry about it. Every girl here has a different way to spice up their outfit. At least my hair's up right?" she said hopefully.  
  
He shrugged his shoulders, muttered a good-bye, and walked past her without further comment.  
  
With a sigh she continued on her way to the dorms, briefly catching snatches of conversations coming from the closed doors on either side of her. As she made her way down the stairwell to the ground floor, she noted the camera winking in her direction. She smiled unpleasantly at it, and continued on her way.  
  
Through the side door, and down the stone path, she found herself at the large courtyard that was overlooked by the girl's dormitories. She zigzagged through the various obstacles, and paused when she heard something from the direction of the forest. She looked down the large hill, and towards the lush green grass that met abruptly with the forest that surrounded her school. She turned her ear toward the dark trees and strained to hear the sound again. There, again she heard it; almost like a guttural growl. She continued walking faster this time, hoping that another guard dog hadn't gotten loose into the woods, and frowning as the memory resurfaced in her mind.  
  
She reached the large oak doors to the dorms without much incident, and proceeded to her own room which she shared with her best friend Allison. Once inside, she threw her bag onto her bed, and moved to her mirror. She studied the reflection carefully, noting how tired her brown eyes looked, and the bruise-black circles underneath them. She ran a finger over her full lips, testing whether they were chapped or not, and sighed as she caught sight of her freckles. Turning away, she reached for her long plait, and tugged upon the rubber band holding it together, letting it unravel to reveal her long brown hair.  
  
She looked at her bag briefly, thinking about whether or not she should get online to talk to Andy. She mentally shook her head, feeling exhaustion take hold of her body, and plopped down on her bed, resigning that she'd see him soon.  
  
Within minutes, she fell asleep, and woke up several hours later to an urgent pounding on her door. Through her sleepy haze she could vaguely hear what sounded like screaming filter into her dark room from outside. Suddenly alert, she sat up in her bed, and made for her door. Before she reached it though, it burst open. All she could do was scream.  
~***~  
  
Well, there's another chappie. I know this one was a bit short and pointless, but I thought I'd introduce the main character, and kinda show the deep breath before the plunge (sound familiar?). PLEASE review...if I get enough I may just be stirred into writing quicker. Even one-liners are good, every review counts. Next installment: Death, discovery, loss, gore, ZOMBIES, and a couple of people getting bitch-slapped for being wusses. 


	3. Into the Unknown

~A/N: I don't own Resident Evil, and I am eternally sorry that I don't. Anyways, here's another chapter, dedicated to all of my loving reviewers. NiennaAramenel: Thank you for your review, and kudos for recognizing the similarities, I love Harry Potter as much as I love Resident Evil. LeonFan2k3: Mass props to your for recognizing the LotR:RotK reference, I soo owe you something. I know, I'll go get the ring from Mount Doom! I'm sure no one will mind too much. Snikers: I love you, and your fics, they're really well written. Blizzaga: Thank you so much, you're so kind. I just read your fic, and I loved it, you should keep writing! Zyte: Thank you so much for reviewing, I would have updated earlier, but I got in a car accident and messed up my wrist. I didn't go to the doctor for my friend's legal/insurance reasons, and so I will be plodding along from now on, but still writing as long as people are out there reading/reviewing. Sorry if the bitch slap was cheap, but I wanted to get a chapter out there before people lost interest. Oh and long live Pokemon! Matro: Thank you, and I'm glad to see that you updated. Corpasite: Thanks for the advice, I'll consider not being all long winded all the time, I don't know how you guys take that, and wow this a/n is becoming long winded too....sorry! Oh, and thank you Devinedragonslayer! (Sounds like Mario) Here we go!  
~***~  
  
As the door burst open, all she could see was the tall outline of the intruder, and already she felt uncomfortable, her heart rate quickening, and the blood pounding in her head. She backed up a step, hoping to get some distance between her and the shadowy figure in front of her. That was when he, more like it, stumbled forward into the light to reveal a familiar face.  
  
Her best friend's boyfriend, Dan, stood in front of her. Long gashes and chunks of flesh missing spoiled his once handsome face. Dark pools of blood continued to pump out of the wounds, cascading off of his face to make sickly pools on the ground. On his side a large tear was made in the fabric of his slowly reddening polo shirt, revealing a sickly amount of flesh missing just below his ribs. She watched in fascination for a moment, almost entranced by the contrast between the red of his dwindling life force and the white of his shirt. She snapped out of it as soon as he took another labored step towards her. Her eyes moved down his body, taking in his left leg which looked as though it had been in a meet grinder; his khakis were shredded, as was the meat of his thigh.  
  
Her eyes widened in surprise, and all she could do was gasp. She let out all of her air as she screamed, long and high. She scrabbled backward towards her closet, hoping to find her field hockey stick as thoughts of childhood nightmares and movie fantasies flashed through her head. As her hand brushed over the smooth wood, she felt a cold hand grasp her arm and spin her around.  
  
"What are you doing? Aren't you going to help me!" he screamed into her face, shaking her slightly. He had managed to get a hold of both of her shoulders, and was gripping them with such force that it took all of her self control not to whimper in pain.  
  
"I'm sorry! I didn't know what to think, I thought you were dead. The first thing I thought of was, well zombies. But that sounds stupid, I know that now. What the hell happened to you?" she said through clenched teeth; his nails were now digging through the fabric of her shirt and into her skin.  
  
"Zombies, is what happened!" he said quietly, dropping his hands from her shoulders, and slumping to the ground.  
  
Cadence stood there for a minute, unable to comprehend what he had just said. She then dropped her gaze to him on the ground, and noticed that his breathing had become labored, and that he was staring around the room with unseeing eyes.  
  
She ripped a shirt off the hanger from her closet, and knelt down next to him.  
  
"Dan, stay with me. What happened here, where is everyone else?" she asked soothingly as she wiped the blood from his face.  
  
He flinched before answering, "Where's Allison?"  
  
"I don't know. I got out of class a while ago, I've been here the whole time. Now, Dan, listen to me, tell me what happened" she said more urgently this time as she held the bloodied rag to his side.  
  
"I was in class. The doors locked. We couldn't get out. In Smith hall everyone was eating for first lunch. Allison was there. I had to get to her. I crawled out a window. Dropped to the ground. The janitor was there. He chased me. Grabbed by leg and bit me. Hurt, couldn't get up. Ate my side, my face. Kicked him and ran. People in the windows were screaming. There was a dog. I ran into the lunch building. All I could hear was screaming. Couldn't find Allison. Came here," he gasped through intakes of breath. His head began to roll around lazily on his neck, and he couldn't seem to focus his eyes.  
  
"Oh God, Dan please stay with me!" she screamed as she saw his face begin to pale beneath the blood.  
  
She stood up and went to her door, and stepped out into the hall, searching frantically for someone that would be able to help. After seeing no one, she began to walk towards the stairs in the hopes that she would find someone on the lower levels, but stopped when she heard Dan scream behind her.  
  
"Don't go out there! It's not safe! They can't get up the stairs."  
  
She turned around, puzzled, and made her way back into her room. She was about to ask him who 'they' were when he shouted again.  
  
"Shut the door! We'll be safe here together. Please, don't leave me."  
  
"Don't worry, I won't leave you Dan. Do you know where any of my friends are?" she said soothingly to him as she closed the door behind her.  
  
He didn't answer, instead he panted. She moved back over towards him and noticed that the shirt she had placed over his side was now soaked in blood. She got up to get another shirt when he grasped her arm in a vice- like grip, and pulled her down to the ground with him. He loosened his grip slightly, and she knew that he had used a lot of energy, almost too much in grabbing her. She wondered briefly if he was going to die and if she would have to be the one to watch him.  
  
Almost as if answering her unspoken question he whispered, "It hurts so bad. I don't want to die."  
  
She stared at him a moment, taking in his shallow breathing, the sluggish blood still oozing from his wounds, the way he leaned against her bed as if it was the only thing holding him up, and the way his light blue eyes stared up at her unseeingly; the pupil dilated and unfocused. She reached up and started to smooth back his hair reassuringly, whispering soothing words. Just as she was about to tell him he wasn't going to die, the grip on her arm ceased, and his face slackened, his life leaving him in one final, heaving gasp.  
  
"Oh, no. Dan, please come back!" she whispered through gritted teeth, shaking him slightly. He didn't reply.  
  
She stood up holding her heart subconsciously, and looked around the room as if lost. When the door burst open for the second time she jumped back and screamed involuntarily.  
  
"Cadence! Where have you been? Oh, I'm so glad you're alive! I was in the library when..." her friend Allison, trailed off when she noticed her boyfriend slumped on the ground.  
  
"NO! DAN! What happened to you!" she ran past Cadence and threw herself on the ground next to him. She shook him by the shoulders, making him slide from off the bed, and slump to the ground. Allison screamed as she finally noticed his blood on her hands, and she began to sob hysterically.  
  
Cadence watched for a moment in morbid fascination, and then turned away, hoping to give her grieving friend a moment.  
  
She had made up her mind a long time ago that she would be going out in search of her friends, but now that she had heard Dan's frantic last words, she was worried about what she would find.  
  
Allowing her friend a wide berth, she went to her to bed and retrieved her backpack. Pawing through its contents, she found her cell phone, which she placed in the waistband of her skirt. She paused, thinking about what else she would need for the unknown something she was about to face. A light bulb flickered on in her head, and she dropped down on her knees, reaching under her bed and finding the large box she was looking for. Opening it she found some of her most precious keep sakes. She sifted through it and found the object she had been looking for, discarding the rest. A large, silver and black pocket knife that her dad had given her in the hopes she would become more like her brother, who was in the Marines. She grabbed it, and clipped it onto her skirt near her hip.  
  
She then focused her attention on her friend that had collapsed on top of her deceased boyfriend during the time Cadence had been searching, and was now forcing dry, racking sobs.  
  
"Allison, get up. We have to go."  
  
"No, we don't have to go! Do you have any idea what's even out there! You've obviously been sitting her safe while the rest of us have been fighting for our lives. I wouldn't have made it had it not been for Mrs. Riley. And everyone that had been in the Educational building is dead!" she screamed through sobs.  
  
Slightly taken aback, she stepped towards her friend with her arms out reassuringly. "Tell me what happened then? What did this to Dan, who killed everyone!" she asked frantically, hoping to finally get some answers.  
  
"Screw you, you little princess! I wish you would have died instead of Dan. But you're going to die anyways if you go out there, and I don't care! I hope you get eaten alive by those things, just like everyone else!" she yelled hysterically.  
  
Shocked, she grabbed her friend by the arm, and carefully picked her up, hoping to comfort her. Allison lashed out, making a shallow cut on her face, just below her cheek bone. Cadence abruptly let go of her friend, and grabbed her cheek in shock, wondering what happened to her once passive friend.  
  
"We can't stay here Allison. Do you really wanna stay in the same room as your dead boyfriend? We'll get out of here, okay, if we stay together," she said quietly trying to keep the anger from her voice.  
  
"No! I'm not leaving! I refuse to, I'll stay here forever with Dan. We'll be safe together. You can't make me leave! I won't go out there with those things again!"  
  
"Allison, if you don't get up, I'll make you get up. Now, let's go!" she yelled, her fists clenched in frustration as she advanced upon her friend.  
  
Her friend stood her ground, raising her chin jauntily, her chest puffed out in defiance. Though, she was also wringing her hands and shaking slightly. Cadence began to recognize just how scared she was of going back outside. She gently grabbed the other girl's arm, and began to pull her towards the door.  
  
It all happened too quickly for Cadence to stop herself. Her friend let out a high pitched scream and began to babble incoherently, all the while flailing around, occasionally catching Cadence in the face and chest with clenched fists. Cadence yelled for her friend to stop, but it was drowned out by her shrieking friend. After she felt Allison's fist connect with her right eye, she felt that she had had enough; she brought up her right hand across her body and whipped out, catching her friends cheek in an unmistakable bitch slap. She fell to the ground clutching her cheek, and immediately stopped screaming. She scuttled back to her boyfriends side and glared up at Cadence with apparent hatred.  
  
"Fine. If you want to stay here and starve to death, then you can, I don't care anymore! At least do me the courtesy of telling me what's out there. I still don't know exactly what happened," she said. As she spoke, she felt a slight pain in her lower lip, and after reaching up and touching it, found it beginning to swell.  
  
Her friend said nothing, instead choosing to glare. Cadence turned and surveyed her room once more, searching for her softball bat. After finding it propped up against her wall near her door, she went for it, grabbing it and the door knob in one fluid motion. Without looking back, she walked out the door. The last thing she heard before she slammed the door behind her was a slight moan and Allison whispering frantically, "What, Dana? You're hungry?".  
  
As she reached the stairs, she heard a muffled sound behind her; the breaking of glass and the 'thump' of a large object the tell-tale signs of a struggle. She hesitated, but didn't turn around when she heard a scream echo down the hall from behind her.  
~***~  
  
~A/N: Yeah, so there is another chapter. I'm not sure if that was a cliffie though, Matro, sorry. I did it again! I'm so lame with the whole, writing long, pointless chapters, I'm sooo done now. All I have to say is REVIEW! If I know people liked what I was doing, I know that I would be spurred to continue. You guys are doing good without the one-liners, but if really don't feel in the mood to review, just say how the chapter was. Oh, and if there is anything that you guys would like to see, I could see what I could whip up. I'm only asking because this is all for you guys, and only a little for me. Next installment: Reunions, running, zombies (I promise this time), and an unfeeling main character. 


	4. Jacob The Hall Monitor

~A/N: (Insert regular disclaimer here) Well, hello everybody that reads this! I just want to start out by saying thank you to Matro, Tsunami, and Zyte for still being out there, and for reviewing, I appreciate it more than you know. This chapter is dedicated to you guys! Thank you for the sympathy also, you guys are so kind. I did go to the doctor and it wasn't so bad, all I have to do is wear an Ace bandage, so YEAH! Oh, and thank you too, Sorphedius, I appreciate you comment. Okay...here we go...  
~***~  
  
Goosebumps erupted all along Cadence's body as she stepped out of the relative safety of her dormitory and into the cold night. She instinctively wrapped her arms around herself as she began walking through the courtyard, her eyes searching the deep shadows around her for any sign of movement.  
  
As she reached the very center of the stone courtyard, she looked up into the sky, taking in the bright twinkling stars and the pale moon that was now slightly obscured by dark gray clouds. She sighed, her breath coming out in a small, misty cloud as she allowed herself to be tricked into a false sense of comfort by the normalcy of the sky.  
  
/Except, what happened to the volume?/  
  
As she reached the very center of the stone courtyard she finally noticed something; the absence of sound. She frowned slightly and immediately stopped walking, shaking her head violently as if to clear her head of something. She still didn't hear anything, no crickets, no frogs, no anything.  
  
Slightly alarmed, she began to walk again, this time much faster than before, with her softball bat tightly clenched in her hand. She reached the main path that forked to both the main school and the lunch building and stopped in her tracks, confused on which way to go. She thought back to her conversation with Allison, decided to veer right towards the lunch building and had just began walking when she heard something behind her. She froze in her tracks, her back turned to the sound and her ears perked. The sound seemed to stop as she did, and as she started to walk again, almost at a jog, it didn't continue.  
  
She was within twenty feet of the dark door to the lunch building when once again she heard it; a clicking sound, almost as if someone was tapping their fingernails on cement. This time as she stopped it didn't, instead choosing to increase the tempo of the clicking noise. She clamped her eyes shut and clenched her teeth, willing with all of her strength for the sound to go away. When she finally realized that it wasn't in fact going away, but getting closer she spun around quickly, bat held out in front of her like a sword.  
  
Her eyes widened in surprise as she saw the dark outline of a dog on the stone path not more than thirty feet away from her. The animal had stopped walking when she had finally turned around, and Cadence had a creeping feeling that it had been stalking her. Now it sat partially hidden in the shadow of the school, its head down and its eyes glowing sinisterly through the darkness at her.  
  
She stood staring at it, and began backing up slowly, willing her foot steps to be as quiet as possible. It advanced out of the shadows towards her slowly, and she couldn't help but gasp out loud. The animal looked as though it had been in an epic fight; missing fur in large clumps all over its lithe body, its skin mottled and slick with the dark red of dried blood, and a gaping hole in its side, revealing the white of its ribs. She watched in awe as it continued towards her despite the fact that a large portion of skin had rotted off of two of its legs, revealing broken and misshapen bones. She swore out loud and began running as fast as she possibly could in the opposite direction, hoping that she would reach the door in time. She was within ten feet of the door when she heard the dog bark from just behind her, snapping its bloodied jaws at the backs of her exposed calves. She only ran faster, groaning against the effort and screamed involuntarily as she felt what could only be the dog's paws slam into her back, sending her flying forward. The ground upturned itself as the sky and the stone path melted together, and she closed her eyes despite herself, opening them sharply after her head connected with the hard ground.  
  
She found herself looking up at the starry sky, her head pounding, and completely disoriented. She heard a growl echo from the left of her, and sprang up, finally remembering the dog.  
  
It was not more than five feet from her, standing between her and the door she needed and growling deep within its partially decayed throat. She held the bat that she had miraculously kept a grip on during the fall out in front of her, waiting stiffly for the dog to make a move. From behind her, she heard the howls of what could only be more dogs echo from closer than she would have wanted. She chanced a glance over her shoulder and saw the dark outlines of at least seven more guard dogs in the courtyard behind her.  
  
It was then, when she was looking away that the dog in front of her decided to strike. She heard its paws skitter on the ground briefly, and looked forward again just in time to see it leaping towards her. She raised the bat and swung it downwards, connecting with the dogs head with a sickly 'squelch'. It yelped as it fell, and landed on the ground with a wet thud. She watched it twitch on the ground for in minute in morbid fascination, taking a closer look at it's decaying body. Her head was just voicing the question of how it could still move with so much bodily damage when she saw it begin to move again; it's clouded eyes opening once again to stare at her, and it's limbs flexing as if to test their strength.  
  
She opened her mouth in disbelief and raised the bat again, preparing to strike. She looked down at the dog in front of her and then at the door not more than two feet away, and chose to escape into the safety of the building in front of her.  
  
She was at the door within seconds throwing it open and allowing herself to fall inside. The door had just barely closed, clicking into place, when she heard a large 'thump' against it, followed by another, and then another, and then another.  
  
She crab walked backwards away from the door and only stopped when she felt her back hit the cold marble of the opposite wall. She watched the door rattle on its sturdy hinges and only stopped when she was satisfied that it wouldn't open.  
  
She sat where she was for a minute allowing her heart rate to slow down. She reached up to wipe the wetness from her head that she presumed was sweat and gasped as her hand came back red. She reached back up and felt a large lump beginning to form on her head near her hairline, and sighed as she accepted the fact that she was pretty beaten up.  
  
She stood up shakily and wiped the blood on her black pleated skirt as she began to take in her surroundings. The once familiar hallway was now dark and ominous, red emergency lights reflecting off of the marble walls to make the entire hallway glow an eerie red. She looked left and right down the 'T' of the hallway she was in and after seeing no immediate threat, took the right hall towards the cafeteria.  
  
She passed by the dark windows of offices and conference rooms and wondered briefly where everyone went. She had passed each doorway without thinking, and after hearing a stealthy 'bump' on the other side of one of them, she stopped and turned back towards it. She stood outside of it for a minute, her body prone when she heard it again, this time more softly.  
  
She shifted the bat from her right hand to her left, and grasped the doorknob firmly in her sweaty hand. She threw the door open after she heard the sound yet again, and stood at the threshold of the room squinting through the dark to try to make out the creator of the noise.  
  
"Stop! Don't come any closer, I have a weapon!" a shaky voice yelled through the dark.  
  
Cadence paused for a moment before finally placing the voice, "Jacob, it's okay it's me, Cadence. Come on out, it's just me out here."  
  
She heard a brief shuffle, and suddenly Jacob was making his way towards her from the back corner of the room, a small paperweight held shakily in his hand.  
  
She smiled before speaking, "That's your weapon? What are you gonna do, hold me firmly down to a desk or something?"  
  
"It was all I could find in the dark. The lights went out a long time ago in here. Where were you when everything happened! Why are you bleeding? Oh, no, your infected aren't you. Stay away from me!" he said frantically as he began backing into the dark room again.  
  
"No, wait Jacob. I hit my head on the ground after one of the guard dogs tried to attack me. Hold up, infected? What do you mean infected?"  
  
"Did the dog bite you or scratch you in any way?" he asked, his face partially hidden in shadow.  
  
"No, why? Can you please just explain what the hell is going on around here? Everyone I've talked to has given me absolutely nothing useful."  
  
"Where have you been this whole time? The whole school has been attacked by what I can only fathom are zombies. Everyone I've seen is either one of them, or being eaten by one of them. This hall is one of the only safe places left that I've seen, and that's why I'm hiding here until help arrives. You should stay here too, we can keep each other company," he said, still out of reach of her and looking fairly cautious and jumpy.  
  
"Zombies? You have to be kidding me. Zombies aren't real, and you and me both know that. Where would they have come from, huh?" she said, chuckling nervously as she remembered the state of the dogs outside and the death of Dan, but still searching her mind for a reasonable explanation for them.  
  
"I don't really know. I was eating lunch, and suddenly people everywhere were screaming. People were running everywhere, it was total chaos. I tried to control the situation until I saw Mr. Kane eating lunch- lady Doris. That was the last straw, I got out of there, and ended up in here. The screams stopped a while ago, I heard most of it from that direction," he motioned vaguely further down the hall.  
  
"Well, that's where I'm going. I've yet to see any 'zombies'," she said sarcastically as she did air quotes, "Just some strange dogs outside, and so I'm going to try to find my friends inside".  
  
"You gotta be kidding me! I'm not going back in there, if you wanna go get killed you can, but do keep in mind that I advised against it," he said as he began to shut the door.  
  
"Please come with me. You said yourself that the screams died down a while ago, maybe the 'zombies' are gone. We have to see if there are any survivors. You're the appointed snitch and hall monitor, so you are obligated to help your fellow students".  
  
He puffed his chest out in apparent pride at her last comment, and began walking towards her out of the room, "Okay then, I'll come with you. But somewhere along the way we're gonna need to get some bandages for you, you look pretty beaten up. Are you sure you weren't bitten?" he asked, gesturing to the cut on her cheek, her fat lip, and the blood dripping slowly from her hair.  
  
"I'm sure, now let's go, I wanna see all of this for myself," she said with an air of disbelief.  
  
The two walked silently down the hall together, Cadence with her bat held at the ready, Jacob with his paperweight held tightly in his shaking hands. Cadence reached the door first, and paused as her she felt the beginnings of a migraine pound at her head. She grasped her head briefly, putting her cold hands on her temples, and felt a dull pain beginning just behind her eyes. She shook her head slowly and looked back to see Jacob standing a few feet away from her with a fearful look on his face. She straightened up, and put a smile on her face to reassure Jacob, pushing aside the pain in her head and refocusing on the task at hand.  
  
"Come on, Jake, it's gonna be okay. I won't let anything happen to you, we'll watch out for each other," she said reassuringly as she put her hand on the large knob of the door.  
  
He shook his head quickly and walked up next her, his paperweight held out in front of him like a strange offering to door. She pushed it open, and a wave of cold air and darkness washed over them. She stepped into the room cautiously and looked around. All she could make out was darkness and greater darkness. She felt Jacob sidle up next to her and she grabbed his hand, squeezing it reassuringly.  
  
She stepped farther into the darkness, and heard their footsteps echo around the large room, and stopped when she felt her foot squelch into something wet. She let go of Jacob's hand and kneeled down onto the ground, letting her eyes adjust enough so she could see what she had stepped in. Her eyes took in a dark pool of what looked like blood that seemed to spread out even farther than she could make out in the dark. She crawled forward, careful not to touch the blood, and found that it lead to a dark shape on the ground. She stood up quickly, and backed up a step as she realized that it was a human body.  
  
"Oh, wow. What the hell happened in here. Jacob, your right, let's get out of he-..."she stopped talking as she heard what sounded like wet footsteps off to her right.  
  
She heard Jacob whimper behind her, and she quickly backed up to him, grabbing his arm and pulling him back towards the square of light that was the door.  
  
"Uggghhhh"  
  
"Oh, God! It's them! We gotta go, now!" Jacob practically screamed as the room started to come alive around them with noises and sounds.  
  
Footsteps, shuffling, grunts, and moans mixed together to make an undistinguishable cacophony of noise around them. They snapped their heads left and right as they backed up towards the door, the acoustics of the room making it hard to tell exactly where the noise was coming from.  
  
She could make out through the dark the hunched and shuffling shapes of what looked like at least a hundred people, all shambling towards them and appearing from what appeared to be nowhere.  
  
The closest one to them was coming towards them from next to the door they entered from, blocking off their exit. They stopped where they were, and stood staring at the face of what looked like their teacher Ms. Cole. The red lights filtering in through the door sent her face into sharp relief, revealing a terrible sight; her face was bloodied due to a large amount of skin missing from her cheek, revealing her cheekbone and lower jaw. Her eyes which were staring unfocusedly at them were clouded over with a milky-white film, and her mouth hug open lazily as she moaned, spittle dripping from her cracked lips.  
  
Cadence was startled out of her shock when she heard Jacob scream next to her, and felt his arm wrenched out of her tight grasp seconds later.  
  
"Jacob, speak to me, where are you?" she screamed frantically.  
  
She saw and heard him at the same time, only a few feet away from her struggling against the dark form of what she now had to admit was a zombie.  
  
She began to walk forward, bat raised when she herself was pulled back by who she could only assume were Ms. Cole's cold dead hands. She screamed out loud, and wrenched out of her grasp. She turned around and swung her bat at the teacher's outstretched arms, achieving a sickening 'snap' as the zombie's arm cracked. Unphased, the zombie lunged forward, using its other arm to grip Cadence by the shoulder. It held her tightly as it brought its bloodied face to Cadence's arm, and Cadence, fueled by fear pushed her as hard as she could away from her. The zombie fell backwards and away from her, falling to the ground clumsily.  
  
She turned back around towards Jacob as she heard him scream in pain, and saw to her horror, that he was pinned down by three zombies. She watched in disbelief as they tore at his pale skin, and dug their teeth into the flesh of his torso. He screamed for Cadence to help, but she couldn't hear him past the pounding in her head.  
  
He struggled against them for minute before Cadence finally acted, moving forward and swinging her bat down on the first zombie. She hit what she now recognized as a student from her 3rd period class, in the back of the head, caving in the softened bone. It dropped without a sound, and Cadence moved onto the next one, hitting it repeatedly in the back with such force that her arms began to grow numb. Even after she heard it's spinal cord snap, it didn't stop, and only after she also hit it in the head, did it finally crumple to the ground.  
  
She paused as she moved onto the next zombie, ignoring the fact that Jacob was no longer moving, and saw that the zombies were almost on top of her, scattered at different intervals within five feet of her. She screamed, and looked down at Jacob, who she could no longer see; his body blocked from her sight by the crowd of zombies surrounding him.  
  
"No! Jacob!" she managed to scream before giving up hope, and backing away from him, her eyes wide in terror.  
  
She turned around and ran, dodging past Ms. Cole who was crawling on the ground towards her. Ms. Cole moaned in disappointment as Cadence slipped past her, and out the door, slamming it shut behind her. She slid to the floor in a heap, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Before she had a chance to process what had just happened, to even shed a tear for Jacob, she heard footsteps coming down the hall towards her.  
  
"Cadence?" a voice asked from far away.  
  
She looked up to see the blurred outline of the speaker. Squinting, she tried to make out the person in front of her, but even as he got closer, she couldn't see past the darkness edging around her vision.  
  
She mumbled something nonsensical as she heard the voice say her name again, this time from farther away. Her head began to pound, and the dull pain behind her eyes began to sharpen, and all she wanted to do was surrender to the peaceful darkness that was beginning to numb her body and cloud her mind. Without a further sound she slumped sideways, succumbing to unconsciousness.  
~***~  
  
~A/N: Yeah! Another chapter in the can. It seems that less people are reviewing...I feel kinda bad. Where did everyone go? Well, as long as at least someone reviews..I shall continue, even if it's just for that one person. So to everyone else....REVIEW! Please...pretty please? I'll knit you scarves for the cold summer weather? Next installment: More running, some raining, more Zombies, and survivors? 


	5. A Harmless Little Shower

~A/N: I'm baaaack! Sorry about this chapter taking so long, I had a bit of writers block, plus a giant school project that I left till the last minute. Oops! Anyways...here it is folks...and I'll try from now on to update at least every week like I used to. This chapter is mainly dedicated to Cass for doing the same for me. Oh and of course my loyal reviewers NiennaArcamenel (Thank you for the comment and the commitment), Zyte (yes, Jacob will become a zombie, sorry dear), Corpasite (I've done one Harry Potter fic, but besides this no other fanfictions), Matro (Thankyou!), and Tsunami(Maybe she is...hee hee...but thank you so much for the comments and the lolli, that was soo cute!). Oh and of course, I can't forget to thank Sorphedius again, and C15Wildfire for his/her comment too!  
~***~  
  
The distant sound of talking cut through the darkness that clouded the girl's mind. She winced in pain as the sound echoed dully inside her skull, and moaned out loud when her she heard the sound of laughter assault her eardrums from what sounded like far away.  
  
The talking immediately ceased, and she was eternally grateful for it up until she heard someone talking directly to her from even closer by.  
  
"Cadence, are you awake?"  
  
"Shut up!" she yelled, and immediately wished she hadn't as she felt her head vibrate from the sound. She gritted her teeth, and made the decision not to talk anymore.  
  
For a moment, she heard nothing but the pounding of blood in her ears before a warm hand touched her forehead, the fingers delicately probing the large bump on her head, and suddenly she had the strength to open her eyes, as if the contact was her only connection to the real world.  
  
For a moment, she didn't think she actually opened her eyes, and only after blinking frantically did she see the curtain of darkness begin to lift and the world begin to focus itself back into blurred shapes and bright colors.  
  
Directly in front of her, a blurred shape began to sharpen into focus, turning into the familiar face of her friend James. She stared at him for a moment, almost entranced by the big, blue eyes, shapely mouth, pale skin, and dark, spiked hair.  
  
She got up as quickly as her tired body would allow and threw her arms around him before she had a chance to stop herself.  
  
"Oh, I thought you were dead!" she murmured sofly into his ear.  
  
"Seriously, you two need to get a room" she heard to her right, and after slowly turning her head she saw her friend Andy standing with his arms crossed over his chest and a frown on his face.  
  
She heard the sound of laughter, and only after letting go of the now blushing boy did she realize that she was surrounded by people.  
  
"Andy!" she said before focusing her attention on the rest of the people in the room, studying their weary faces and saying each name in turn with careful disbelief, "Sara...Chandra...Bri...Leslie...Joey...John...Brian...Jeff, how did you all make it?"  
  
There was a slight pause, and then everyone in the room began to speak at once, their words tumbling over one another's in an undistinguishable array of noise. The group all stopped as one as well, laughing mildly at having been so synchronized with each other.  
  
"Okay, how about one at a time?" Cadence asked the group, still smiling despite herself.  
  
Everyone in the room looked at each other carefully, as if daring someone to go first, and after too long of a pause, Andy rolled his eyes, and spoke first.  
  
"Well, you know after Dunmire's class we had lunch, and I promised that I'd come get you, and bring these fools-" he gestured to the people standing around him, "-with me. But like always, I broke my promise, and decided to not mention that you were sent back to the dorms when I met everyone here in the library. We've been holed up here ever since, and it seems that this is the last safe place left because of the barricades."  
  
Cadence knitted her eyebrows in confusion at his last comment. "Here in the library?" she asked, cutting him off before he could continue.  
  
"Hey, Cade, take a look around you," her friend Sara supplied with sarcasm.  
  
She had assumed that she was still in the lunch building, but after finally looking around her she noticed that she was indeed inside her academy's library. From her position on a large, dusty couch she looked down upon the ground floor from what she assumed was the second story balcony to receive a total shock. The once orderly bookshelves, over twenty feet tall each, now lay on the ground haphazardly, some cracked and broken, others simply spilling hundreds of books onto the already cluttered ground. Those bookshelves that were still relatively upright were leaned against the far doors, serving as a makeshift barricade. Near the doors lay several bodies, one that she could barely recognize as the librarian and others as former students. She looked away quickly, not wanting to have to identify who exactly lay on the ground without a head.  
  
"Wait a second, before you continue with your story, Andy, how did I get here?" she asked, slightly confused.  
  
James, who was sitting on the couch with her answered. "I found you actually, in the lunch building. I was going to go see if I could find some more food for us, when I ran into you. When I found you, you mumbled something and then passed out. You looked a mess, you were covered in blood. I brought you back here."  
  
At his last comment, Cadence took the time to look down at herself, and almost screamed at the condition she was in. Her slim legs were dotted with splatters of dried blood, and her shoes were practically covered in it, as if she had waded into a pool of red paint. Her black skirt was stained with dark patches of blood, and her white shirt was now polka-dotted with red. She didn't want to know how the rest of her looked as she tried frantically to remove the blood. She was just about to place a finger in her mouth to help with the cleaning process when James grabbed her hand, halting it just before it reached her lips.  
  
"That's a bad idea. We don't want you to get infected. Oh, and by the way, you have a mild concussion, or at least that's what we think," he added as an afterthought as he gestured to her head.  
  
She stared at him a moment in mute disbelief, and then reached up to touch her head before being stopped once again by James.  
  
"Cade, I don't really suggest touching an open wound with a blood stained hand. It's never really a good idea, and even more so in our present predicament."  
  
"You really need to clean yourself up Cadence. We rounded up some extra clothes from around, but we didn't want to move you until you woke up. You'll have to dress yourself," her friend Bri said gently, picking up a small pile of clothing from behind her and throwing it at James who plucked it deftly from the air.  
  
"Oh, okay thanks. I'll just go downstairs to the faculty changing room, there's a shower there I think," she said while getting up gingerly.  
  
Everyone in the room exchanged nervous looks, before somebody finally spoke up.  
  
"That doesn't sound like a very good idea, but neither does allowing you to be covered in infected blood. The ground floor isn't too safe yet, we haven't really checked around yet. Just take someone with you all right, preferably someone who can protect you," Andy added, obviously volunteering himself to accompany her.  
  
"All right then, if a girl can't protect her-," she put an angry emphasis on the word girl, "-Andy, we'll send a boy. James, you go with her," Leslie said angrily, obviously trying to ruin Andy's plan.  
  
James nodded and stood up, turning his back on the obviously infuriated Andy and grabbing a bat from the ground near his feet.  
  
"Let's go then James. You can hold the clothes, I don't want to get them dirty too," Cadence stated, already halfway to the stairs.  
  
Upon seeing them she wondered how exactly they were expected to climb down; chair, tables, and other various objects were placed at random intervals all along the large staircases steps.  
  
"We put that junk there just in case something actually does get in. We were thinking that the zombies were too clumsy to climb stairs, so we put crap on them to make it even harder, as a precaution." He answered, reading her face.  
  
He grabbed her hand gently, and led her down the stairs. At the bottom, he didn't let go, and Cadence didn't object, and together they wound their way towards the back of the library towards two wooden doors set into the wall.  
  
Choosing the right door, designated for girls, Cadence made to walk in, but was stopped by James, who had stopped.  
  
"What's wrong?" she asked carefully, searching his face.  
  
"I can't just go in there with you, your going to be taking a shower," he stated plainly.  
  
"Well, it's not like you haven't-..."  
  
"That was when we were going out Cadence, it's different now," he said, cutting off her thought.  
  
"Fine," she said, dropping his hand roughly and walking through the door without another word.  
  
Once inside, she shut the door, and immediately wished she hadn't. The small room she had just stepped in was quiet and foreboding. The locker room to her right completely bathed in darkness, the showers in front of her completely still. She briefly thought about re-opening the door, but brushed off the thought, wanting James to feel her anger through the door.  
  
She took a few tentative steps forward, into the first shower, and after hearing nothing but her own quiet breathing, proceeded to peel off her blood-stained clothing.  
  
She shivered slightly as her bare skin touched the cool air of the room, and turned on the hot water tap quickly, stepping under the water as soon as it begun to steam.  
  
She sighed contentedly as she felt the water warm her skin and began to rub her arms and legs roughly, washing off the blood in pale pink rivers into the drain, where it swirled momentarily before disappearing.  
  
So intent upon cleaning off the infected blood and partially deafened by the rushing water, Cadence didn't hear the small chink of glass from somewhere in the room, and the shuffling footsteps that followed.  
  
Cadence began to hum despite herself, as was customary to her in the shower, and so focused on washing her hair, didn't see the shower curtain behind her ruffle slightly from a non-existent wind.  
  
Finally hearing footsteps, Cadence paused in her singing, and turned around.  
  
"James, is that you?" she asked quietly, growing nervous as she heard no immediate reply.  
  
Gulping hard, she reached out a wet hand to the light blue shower curtain in front of her, and pulled it aside.  
  
Her stomach dropped to her feet as she saw the shambling shape of a former student through the steam not more than three feet away from her, its mouth a bloody maw on it's nearly skinless face, it's arms and torso an indistinguishable mass of blood and eviscerated tissue. All she could do was gasp as it lunged at her.  
  
She took an involuntary step backward, and slipped on the slick tile floor, ripping the flimsy shower curtain from it's rings as she attempted to hold herself up with it. She gasped as her head connected with the ground for the second time that day, and screamed out loud as she saw it drop down onto its knees and crawl towards her. She pushed herself backwards with her hands and feet, trying to wipe the falling water out of her eyes, and thrust out with her bare foot in an attempt to keep the monster at bay.  
  
It slapped the barrier that was her foot out of the way, and crawled towards her with an eerie hunger in it's soulless eyes, moaning wetly as the blood from it's face washed away into it's mouth and onto the tiled floor.  
  
Her head hit the wall that was the end of the showers and she screamed in sheer desperation as she found herself trapped. She watched in horror as the zombie grabbed her foot, and in that brief moment when it's red, gummy teeth began to move toward it, her entire world slowed down. The water cascading onto the zombie like rain didn't make a sound, nor did she hear it's hungry moans, or the shouts from someone else in the room; the blood pounding in her ears was too deafening.  
  
She watched in numb horror as the zombie stopped, just millimeters from her fleshy calf, and began to move away, as if pulled. Confusion clouded her eyes as the zombie lashed out, scrabbling frantically to get back to it's meal. Not until a spray of cold, dark blood splattered onto her face and the curtain still covering her shivering body, did she finally hear James screaming at her if she was okay, and see the bloody bat still held in his hand. Comprehension dawned on her wide, frightened eyes as she saw the zombie, twitching at her savior's feet.  
  
She stared at James from the ground, the eye contact between them intense as he tried to keep his eyes trained on her face, and not her pale body. Cadence couldn't move, she was almost frozen with fear, despite the hot water still raining down onto the shower curtain that only partially covered her nude form. Her breath came out in short, quick gasps as she tried her hardest not to cry, to scream, to run away and hide from the horror that stood convulsing at her feet.  
  
After a long moment, a racking sob made it's way out of her throat, and despite her hardest tries to restrain herself, she felt hot tears beginning to form at the back of her eyes.  
  
James frowned as he watched the girl lying in front of him put a hand over her eyes, as if to shield herself from the sight in front of her. With her other hand, she grasped the shower curtain and pulled it more securely over her body, as if ashamed of being seen.  
  
Feeling pity for her, he reached forward and turned off the hot water tap, and bent down. With one hand he reached for her and began pulling her into a standing position, with the other he kept the shower curtain in place, shielding her familiar body from view.  
  
She immediately pressed herself against him, and he wrapped his arms around her gently, ignoring the water that was slowly soaking into his clothes. She leaned into him, and he held tighter, convinced that he was the only thing keeping her from falling. He listened silently to her breathing as it gradually began to slow down, the hiccups growing farther and farther apart, and was only mildly surprised to hear that she wasn't crying.  
  
After a long while, she began to shiver more violently than before, and he suddenly remembered that she was still naked, and most likely freezing. He began to run his hands along her arms and sides in an attempt to warm her up, his callused hands sliding over the goose bumps on her skin, and she jumped as if surprised, and stepped back.  
  
"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean..." she broke off, apparently unsure of what she was sorry for, "Thank you James."  
  
"Your welcome Cade, I'm just sorry I came so late. I ended up going the wrong way at first, into the locker room area. There's a broken window back there, and what looks like a person. It's not safe in here. We should get back to the others soon." He looked at her face, which was now one again spotted with blood, and continued, "But first, you should re-wash yourself. I'll go find a towel, and I'll be in here with you this time okay."  
  
She nodded mutely and turned around, walked stiffly back into the shower and turned on the hot water tap. She dropped the shower curtain, and James shocked, had to tear his eyes away from her delicate body.  
  
He walked away, and set the large, fluffy towel he had just found on a chair along with her new set of clothes. He leaned against the wall, and slid down it lazily, trying as hard as he could to burn the image he had just seen out of his head before it stayed there forever.  
  
He was startled out of his reverie when he heard shouting echo through the door form the other room. Suddenly alert, he stood up and shouted to Cadence.  
  
"Something's going on out there. Hurry up and change, I'm going to go see what's happening."  
  
Before she had a chance to reply, she heard the door open and close, and she suddenly felt very alone. She turned off the tap, and stepped gingerly towards the door, and after catching sight of the towel, grabbed it and quickly dried herself off.  
  
She examined the cloths in front of her, a blue pleated tennis skirt with her school's logo branded near the hip, and a small white polo shirt with a similar logo on the breast pocket, and suddenly realized that it must have been one of her friends tennis uniforms. As she reached for the outfit, she heard a large 'boom' followed by another, that shook the ground beneath her, and then silence. She grasped them quickly in her shaking hands, and quickly put them on, thankful the skirt was actually a skort due to the fact that she didn't have any clean undergarments available.  
  
She was just considering whether or not she had time to braid her hair, when she heard shouting coming from the other room. Sighing, she merely threw her head forward and placed the wet strands into a pony tail, the end just reaching the middle of her back.  
  
She rushed forward towards the door as she heard the distant sound of screaming once again, and grasped the handle, wrenching it open towards her and taking in the sight in from of her.  
  
To her immediate right, the make-shift barricade that had been created by bookshelves was pushed over, and the now open door was allowing zombie after zombie to spill into the already crowded room. She watched in mute disbelief as they stumbled lazily over the fallen shelves and books, some falling to feast upon the bodies that had been left earlier, and others advancing upon her friends, trapped on the second floor, their only escape blocked off. The zombies seemed to crowd just at the foot of the stairs, unable to climb them, just as James had suspected, and her friends sat above them, throwing random objects down upon them.  
  
Just as a desk was heaved over the railing, crushing the zombies below, Cadence found her voice.  
  
"Hey, you guys! What are you going to do, your trapped!" she screamed frantically, and then mentally slapped herself for doing so as the attention of the zombies turned towards her, their sightless eyes and disfigured bodies turning towards her as one.  
  
"Oh, shit!" she yelled.  
  
Her friends made similar comments from the landing above her, and began throwing objects down with a renewed vigor, as if trying to kill them before they reached their trapped friend.  
  
But her comment wasn't made for herself, it was made for James, who sat with his back against a book shelf some twenty feet away, completely surrounded by the undead, his bat held out in front of him as he prepared to make his last stand.  
~***~  
  
~A/N: Well, there you have it, another chapter, YEAH! I really liked this one for some reason, maybe the nudieness was fun to write, who knows. Hopefully you guys are still out there, I did leave you hanging. But, please review...I would love you sooo much. And in the words of the GREAT Tsunami, I'll give you a lolli! You know you want one, they aren't as good as hers, but they are semi-sweet! Next installment: Muahahaha, I'm not gonna tell you, bc I wanna leave you guys hanging. And because I don't normally follow what I say I'm going to write, and I don't want to lie to you guys. So yeah....muahahahaaaaa! 


	6. Flight From Death

A/N: (laughs nervously) Hey everyone! I'm back! Well to be honest, I'm pretty sure I'm talking to an empty room. I'm pretty sure that everyone is gone by now, but if you come back your welcome to the free buffet that I set up over there gestures vaguely. I'm reeeeaaaaly sorry I took so long, bad thing after bad thing just kept happening. For old times sake I'm still going to do shout outs, hopefully you'll remember what you said....**Zyte**: Don't worry I'm odd too, I'm the one writing it and thank you for the lovely comment. **Matro**: Thank you so very much, and come back I love your stories...let the writers block go away. **Turn-into-shadows** (were you formally Tsunami?): Thank you for the lolli's it's always a cute gesture, and sorry I turned that week long wait into like 6 months. **Corpasite**: That was honestly a very sincere review and I really appreciate it, I'm sorry I took so long, next time I won't do that to you, you have my word. **Blizzaga**: I too enjoy other characters, specially chillins, thank you for your review. **Nienna**: I can tell you're a HP fan because you can sense the angst. I kinda wanted to make the character more human, emotions and the like, and I give you my guarantee that I'll read your fic. **Pillarofautumn**: It's good to see a Halo fan, or at least I think...I mean PoA? But thank you so very much for your reviews they were really heartening, it was your review that made me start writing again, it kinda just came outta no where. **PsychoticMarine**: Another Halo fan, yeah! I love you guys...but that really is a good idea about the marines...you should e-mail me, I have some plans for the future that may need just what your taking about. Oh and I too, am deranged...isn't it just fun? **Toxin Blackheart**: I'm really, really happy to see you review my work because your one of my favorite people (prolly cause you wrote back to my reviews).For so long I reviewed yours then I disappeared for a while, and didn't read much of anything. It wasn't your fic at all, in fact I miss it. I promise I'll read it and review it. Oh and a special thanks to **DMReturns**, **Alareic**, **Geyser**, **JayMan**, **and Nateblizz** for the reviews, I appreciate them. Okay, I'm done now I promise. This is the long awaited, and slightly shorter than hoped chapter 6....enjoy...I hope.

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Cadence watched James from the doorway of the girl's bathroom with her mouth hanging open in mute horror, subconsciously backing up. A zombie in front of James broke off from the large group advancing towards him and lunged forward, making James jump backwards to avoid what was left of its outstretched fingers. His back hit the bookshelf behind him with enough force to sway the bookshelf and knock large volumes down from their places high above his head. He looked up, arms over his head protectively as he attempted to dodge what looked like an unabridged dictionary. He stepped sideways, and the book thudded down onto the ground where he had just been standing.  
  
He stared at it for a moment, and only the hungry moan of the still-present zombie in front of him made him come back to his senses. He momentarily paused as he stared into the milky-white eyes of his former lab-partner, and closed his eyes as his swung the bat with as much force as he could, only opening them when he heard the sickly 'crunch' of crushing bone under unforgiving wood.  
  
The zombie crumpled in front of him, only to be replaced by another. Without even thinking, he swung the bat down onto its head and cried out in disgust as the scalp of the zombie peeled off in a wet layer, the light hair still attached and matted with blood. The white bone beneath remained intact, and the zombie continued forward unphased, it's cloudy eyes alight with hunger. James cringed and struck it again, this time producing a sickly crack as its scull caved in like a broken egg shell, the stark white of it's skull mixing with the pinkish gray of it's brain matter.  
  
Even before the zombie in front of him fell, another shambled into it's place, clumsily stepping on the body of it's fellow and completely ignorant of the brain matter now painted onto it's DC's.  
  
James cried out involuntarily as he struck down another one of his class-mates, finally seeing that the horde in front of him seemed to have no end, the sheer number of the undead fueled by the still open doors. He backed up once again into the bookshelf, panting, and felt it sway slightly under his touch. His eyes darted quickly over the five zombies in front of him, each less than five feet away. He moaned out of sheer desperation as his mind cycled through endless escape plans, each becoming more ridiculous then the last.  
  
As the small army of undead continued toward him, their mouths agape and red with blood, James began to lose hope.  
  
The five zombies closest to him had closed the distance between them within seconds, and James had less than a millisecond to protect himself from the wall of mottled flesh, and gummy, coagulated blood before it hit him full on.  
  
Cadence, still watching from the doorway, closed her eyes at the exact moment James was slammed painfully into the book shelf behind him. She heard him cry out in pain, almost from far away, and gritted her teeth to drown out the noise. Though she couldn't drown out the loud and dramatic 'boom' followed by the ground vibrating slightly, and it took her a moment to realize that the bookshelf James had slammed into had fallen over.  
  
With a slight glimmer of hope, she opened her eyes, only to see the decomposing face of an infected student not more than a foot away from her, eerily white eyes set deeply into a flakey yellow skin, small cracks revealing dried and blackened blood, and it's slack jaw open and drooling. She screamed in utter surprise as the putrid smell washed over her, and took a step backwards, her back slamming into the closed door behind her.  
  
The zombie in front of her lunged towards her, and with a clumsy sidestep, she managed to avoid it's bloodied fingers, only to fall into the arms of another zombie, this one, to her horror, in a much more advanced state of decay. She screamed again, all thoughts of James' safety forgotten, as she wrestled uselessly against the zombie. It gripped her shoulders with a surprising amount of strength and began to move it's face towards her exposed neck like a creature of the night.  
  
Terrified, she formed her splayed fingers into a fist and lashed out with her last remaining strength. The zombie, undeterred, continued it's maddeningly slow decent upon her neck, it's putrid breath washing over her face in sickly waves. She punched again, and again, and again, until she began to feel the cold wetness of blood on her battered fist. With her other hand she grasped the zombie's brittle fingers, hoping to pry them off of her bruised shoulder. With a sickly snapping sound, she felt its grip loosen, and was suddenly able to pry herself away from it with a straggled yell of triumph.  
  
Almost as an afterthought, she pushed herself against the wall, barely avoiding the zombie she had evaded earlier. Suddenly finding herself overwhelmed, she grasped the handle of the door in front of her and pushed her body against it, landing in a crumpled heap on the other side. Spinning her body around, she kicked the door shut, cutting off the view of the former captain of the football team, his once good looks diminished by missing tissue and gore, and his famous throwing arm hanging limply by his side, the fingers broken and useless, shards of bone sticking through the rubbery flesh.  
  
Suddenly overwhelmed by darkness, Cadence blinked her eyes several times, hoping to adjust. Almost instinctively, her hands went up to her shoulders where she was gripped so hard only seconds before. Letting out a long, deep sigh, she dropped her hands and got up from her position on the floor, her eyes searching the dark room for an impossible solution.  
  
Realizing how very alone she was, she let her thoughts wander to James and her friends, only a doorway away from her. As visions of their bloody deaths, their lifeless eyes, and their final words began to form in her head, a loud 'bam' , followed by another and another, shook her from her reverie. Spinning wildly, she found that it was the door, now shaking violently on it's hinges, being pounded on from the other side.  
  
Suddenly feeling trapped, she began to search around the dark showers frantically. After finding nothing but dripping faucets and moldy shower curtains, Cadence's gaze fell onto the cold lifeless body lying awkwardly on the ground. Her eyes lingered on the dark, tacky splotches of blood covering it's back, and legs, and the gaping hole in it's skull where thick blood still oozed sluggishly out. She stepped forward, squinting at the mutilated face she thought she recognized. With a slight frown she leaned closer, her face mere inches away, when the pounding on the door seemed to double. She jumped in surprise, suddenly panicked at the thought that the door might not hold.  
  
"What am I going to do?", she asked the silent room.  
  
'Bam! Bam! Bam!'  
  
"How am I supposed to get out?"  
  
'Bam! Bam! Bam!'  
  
"What happened to all of my friends?"  
  
'Bam! Bam! BAM!'  
  
For a second, Cadence didn't understand what was happening, and why the room was suddenly so silent, until her wide eyes met with the now open door in front of her, and the shambling outlines of the undead.  
  
She had less than a second to respond, and all she could think of doing was crouching down into a little ball and crying, wishing James or someone was there to save her again. Her thoughts turned back to James, and in a flash of beautiful realization, she remembered that he had warned her that the locker room down the hall had a broken window in it.  
  
Finally taking action, she turned her attention back to the now overcrowded door, and saw her opportunity slipping away as the zombies began to fill the room. Reacting quickly, she ran full speed at the horde, and turned sharply at the last second, tripping over her own feet, and slamming her shoulder painfully into the opposite wall. She squeaked, and rubbed her arm quickly, only vaguely aware of the zombies only feet behind her, and kept going as quick as she could in the pitch black. Up ahead of her and to the right, she could see a dim pool of light reflecting off of the dark tiles, and was there only seconds later to discover a small window in front of her, allowing the light of a full moon to spill in. It was indeed broken; the shards of glass littering the floor at her feet and mixing in with a large pool of blood surrounding what could only be described as a hunk of meat. She cringed and held her nose as the overwhelming smell of blood and death began to assault her.  
  
A lonesome moan from somewhere in the darkness behind her was all it took to bring her back to her senses. She immediately stepped forward, careful not to step into the tacky pool of blood dominating most of the room, and made her way over to the window, all the while her feet crunching on broken glass. She looked down, and immediately felt her stomach fall down to her feet. What bothered her about the sight wasn't the architect's decision to build the library up against a hill, but the fact that it only seemed to affect the part of the library that she was currently in. To the left and right of her were long stretches of grass that led off into the distant darkness, and the rest of the campus. But, in front of her, a narrow grassy path grew right up against the school, followed by a sheer drop into the dark woods below.  
  
The sound of crunching glass behind her caused her to spin, her heart joining her stomach as she saw the narrow hallway begin to fill with the slow, plodding forms of the undead. Her options suddenly narrowed down to one, she turned back around, and quickly calculated just how far she would have to jump, and what the cost would be if she missed. Closing her bruised hand into a fist, she punched out the jagged pieces of glass still clinging to the frame of the window and stepped up quickly onto it.  
  
The wind whipped at her still damp hair and caused her to shiver slightly, as she gazed down at the dark treetops below her. An overwhelming fear began to clutch at her heart, causing it to speed up just as her stomach began to flutter uncontrollably. Just as she began to have doubts about whether or not she could do it, she felt a cold, stiff hand clutch at her calf. With a yelp, she pulled away, and kicked back with all the strength she could muster, feeling connect with something soft.  
  
_It's now or never!_  
  
So, with one last deep breath, she hunkered down and pushed off as hard as she could, aiming and praying that she'd hit the grass to her left and not thin air. For a moment, she felt nothing, and saw nothing as she soared through the cold night air, the wind whipping and pulling at her flailing body. The feeling of weightlessness ended abruptly when she collided with the solid ground, the grass doing nothing to cushion the fall. The 'thunk' she made when she landed echoed against the high brick wall next to her, and floated off into the woods, and for a moment she didn't dare open her eyes, instead choosing to press her face into the cold grass, and reveling in the sudden silence.  
  
When it began to press against her ears, she lifted her head and looked back, her ribs screaming in agony as she stretched to see her left foot dangling off the edge of the cliff she so closely missed.  
  
With a heavy and relieved sigh, she stood up slowly, clutching at her ribs, and looked down to survey the damage. Her knees were a bit scuffed up, as were her hands, but the real damage was a dull, throbbing pain located somewhere in her right side. With an angry growl, her eyes fell back onto the ground where a large, flat rock lay blending in with the grass. Her eyes now narrowed in frustration, she lifted up her shirt gingerly, and found nothing but pale skin. Knowing full well a bruise would be making an appearance in the near future, she began walking with no real sense of where she was going.  
  
The only thing she knew was that somewhere in the building less than two feet away from her, on the other side of the very wall she avoided looking at now, her best friends, whom she'd known all of her life, lay dead or dying. With that last thought, her nose began to sting and her throat began to catch slightly, her carefully erected barriers fighting tooth and nail to subdue to tears that wanted to badly to come to the surface.  
  
With those thoughts still circling through her head like a dark poison, she continued on, no longer bothering to keep quiet, reassuring herself that she hadn't heard anything for a while after all. Her eyes trained on the hard ground, she continued on without any set destination.  
  
"Where can I go?" she asked herself aloud, a small chuckle escaping along with it, "There is absolutely no one left but me, Cadence. And where is there a saf-...".  
  
A sound from up ahead, sharp, quick, and quiet broke her from her reverie. It happened so quickly that Cadence barely had time to register if it was real or not. She paused and automatically pushed herself up against the wall, hoping to blend in with the shadows as she strained to hear the sound again. There, she heard it again, this time much more clearly. The quiet 'snick' of fabric being ripped, followed almost immediately by a wet crunching sound.  
  
Suddenly frightened of what lay just around the corner, Cadence squatted down, knowing her only options were to continue forward or go back to the cliff behind her. To her disgust, the sound continued, growing more fevered as she heard what sounded like meat being torn from bone and cartilage.  
  
_Oh no oh no oh no. Gotta go somewhere, but where?_  
  
Taking one last calming breath, she pressed herself tightly against the wall and slid over, the fabric of her shirt catching on the brick of the wall, until she was right up against the corner of the building. She shivered absently as the crunching sound continued, and with one final deep breath, peeked her head around the corner.  
  
She was barely able to control her gasp of surprise and fear as she took in the decayed back of what looked like a dog. Using every ounce of bravery she possessed, she continued looking, surveying the remains of a coarse gray coat of fur, splotched with thick red blood, and a partially decayed tail swaying slightly with pleasure. It took her only a second later the distinguish it's height and build as not a dogs, but a ridiculously large dog's.  
  
Cadence jumped back behind the relative safety of the wall after the dog let out a particularly large crunch, it's jaws snapping loudly.  
  
_Was that the janitor? Oh crap, what now?  
_  
Before she could come to any real decision, she heard a lone howl echo across the grounds, turning her blood to ice. It sounded again, and another howl joined the chorus, followed by another. The crunching sounds beside her ceased, and she suddenly heard what sounded like wet sniffing sounds.  
  
Her eyes wide with horror and realization, Cadence stood up, attempting to prepare herself for whatever was about to happen next.  
  
_Okay, okay...can dogs catch scents from up wind or down wind? It can't be growling at m-...  
_  
A loud bark, followed by a throaty growl ripped her from her thoughts, and suddenly she was running, running as fast as she could. She chanced a glance to her right, the small gap between the two buildings almost too dark to see through, but the dozens of red eyes glaring at her weren't easy to mistake, nor was the gray blur that was now suddenly moving toward her.  
  
_Go, go, go! Left is to the boy's dorms, too far. Straight is the Educational Building...not safe though. Administrative office? No, too far away...._  
  
Behind her, a particularly loud bark erupted, even the violent snarl scaring her slightly less than the sound of bounding paws on the ground too close behind her. She felt herself getting tired, her pumping arms and moving legs draining her energy, her lungs stuggling to get enough oxegyn to her body.  
  
Taking a sharp right up the sloping lawn of the grounds, she felt herself speeding towards the boy's dormitory, the brick building growing steadily larger the closer she got, the hill she was running up slowing her down. She chanced a look over her shoulder and noticed that the dogs were no longer there anymore, the dark trees of the forest the only thing in sight. She slowed down to a walk, and stopped, spinning around in a full circle before finally coming to rest. Relief quickly overtook confusion as she turned around slowly, hands on her sides as she struggled for oxegyn, trying desperately to remember exactly when she stopped hearing the sounds of the dogs pursuing her.  
  
She turned back around, staring at the direction she just ran from, noting the dark meandering line in the grass where she had run so desperately only moments ago. Her line of sight following the line, she traced her steps back to the library in the distance, and wondered how exactly the dogs didn't catch her.  
  
_Okay, well, time to stop wondering. I need to get inside, maybe find another living person, or a weapon, or better yet an army. If wishes were zombies I'd be dead-..._  
  
A lonesome and intruding howl broke her from her thoughts, and she turned around slowly, praying that her ears were playing tricks on her, and saw the pack of dogs that had formerly been pursing her, standing some distance away, barring her from admittance to the boy's dorms.  
  
_No! That's not possible, it's like they knew where I was going. Smart dogs?  
_  
Without a further thought, she turned right around and ran back down the lawn, retracing her steps back towards the forest. Her mind reeled with options as she heard the sound of pounding paws on the grass behind her. She screamed in desperation and she steered herself towards the side of the Educational Building she was facing and ran with all of the energy she could possibly muster, the effects of the hill helping her to gain speed. Glancing back, she could judge just how close she was to the dogs by how much detail their rotting, festering bodies were in the almost complete darkness.  
  
"No, no no! Go, go, go!", she screamed aloud, not even realizing she was spurring herself on.  
  
The building in front of her neared, the singular door in the wall looking like a merciful sanctuary, just as the dogs behind her gained distance; she could feel their hot breath on the back of her calves, could hear their rotting lungs grunting with exertion, and with the strength of one already doomed, kept running, and seconds later slammed into the door.  
  
She grabbed the handle with sweating hands, not bothering to look back, and pulled with all her strength, and with a scream of rage and shock, found that the sturdy metal door was locked, and that she was trapped.

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A/N: Wow, you have no idea how much I wished I hadn't of taken so long. I REALLY hope that some of you are still out there, and aren't too mad at me to review. I would be sooo happy to know that some of you don't hate me. And if your new to this story, I'd also like to threaten you kindly to review....I LOVE REVEIWS...they make me want to continue. But anyways, as to not piss people off, I've already started to write chapter 7...soooo......  
  
NEXT INSTALLMENT: New characters, new mysteries, new monsters, and more angst....we may even have a mental break down a comin round the mountains.... 


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